Romania

It’s 1989 and Romania is going into its 45th year of rule by Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The winter has been long, cold and hard. There are no smiles on the people’s faces who are forced to endure social tortures like electricity blackouts and hour-long queues for a mere loaf of bread. No one dares to even whisper words of discontent about the state of Romania, in fear of being arrested by Ceausescu’s own private police force and put to work in one of the states many labour camps, sometimes never to return.

From the balcony of the government’s headquarters in the centre of Bucharest, Ceausescu appears in front of a swelling mass of people in an attempt to calm the populations’ anxieties and to assure them prosperity is on the horizon for Romania. The crowd becomes restless and Ceausescu is pelted with vegetables and heckled. A shot is fired and hence starts a Revolution, which will see the fall of 5 decades of communism. In the process, hundreds of people die in bloody battles of defiance on the streets of Bucharest. Eventually and luckily the army refuses to follow the governments lead in killing citizens. The head general commits suicide and the army steps behind the people of Romania. Ceausescu and his wife are captured while trying to flee the country. Both are executed in front of the nation (and most of Europe) on a live television broadcast. So signifies the death of Communism and the birth of democracy. At last the people now have a say.

Bucharest

The capital of Romania dates back to 100AD. An amazing history of rule by Romans, Persians, Turks and Russian empires has given Bucharest a beautiful mix of architecture and culture. Un-repaired cobblestone streets dating back hundreds of years crisscross through the city. Thousands of Dacia’s (Communist period cars) all exactly the same except for colour, burn around the streets seemingly without concern for any type of road rules, gives off an Asian vibe. While dark, un-cleaned streets filled with hundreds of never owned dogs give a feeling that you just walked into your very own cold war spy story.

The Majority of “wealthy”, who look like any other western European, speak a little English while the larger peasant population seems to have more on their minds. You can see the 50 years of hardship under communism scraped across their expressionless faces. Dictator Ceausescu left literally huge impressions on the city. While the people suffered, Ceausescu was busy using the countries money building his dreams. Amoung them is the Casa Poporului, the 2nd largest building in the world (1st is the Pentagon) that took 20,000 people working 24 hours a day for 3 consecutive years to only partially complete. The size and grandeur of this building is nearly indescribable. All the government offices of Romania now reside in the building and take up one third of its area. The rest remains vacant. Deep underneath the building were built huge nuclear bunkers and escape routes, which included a full road system under the city, a man made canal for boat escape and also a train tunnel to the airport.

You could spend weeks in Bucharest exploring the colorful markets, shops, back streets and restaurants, especially in the summer when the many lakes around the city surrounded by beautiful gardens come alive.

Mountainous

The Carpathian Mountains sweep into the country from the northern boarder with the Ukraine. The range curves across the centre of the through the region of Transylvania, where the jagged mountains reach their highest elevation of 2554m.

There are plenty of places to go snowboarding and skiing. Around the town of Predeal, which is only 2 hours from the countries capital Bucharest, there are 6 ski areas. Poiana Brasov is the most popular where the ‘rich’ city folk spend up to $5 AUD per day to ride the lifts and ski. Skiing is definitely reserved for the rich in Romania, as most people cannot afford the equipment on their $100AUD per month average salary. The great thing about snowboarding/skiing in Romania is the people are mostly beginners. Everywhere we rode from Lake Balea to Sinaia to Petrosani, rarely do you find any off-piste tracked. We found incredible fresh snow and all the terrain we could handle.

Lake Balea was probably the most amazing place ridden, only one gondola to a well accommodated and fully serviced cabin. The cabin sits amongst many untracked, untouched peaks, unlimited riding possibilities and easily accessed with some snow shoes or skins. Don’t go there unprepared though. There is no ski patrol, slope management or quick evacuation. Our group was fully prepared and ready for self rescue. We performed all our own slope management, assessing avalanche safety. We always took what we considered to be low risk lines down the mountain. It’s beautiful but dangerous; many people have died in this avalanche renowned valley.

Like Kings

Spending 2 weeks in Romania you will need to take out no more than $500AUD for the whole trip. This will cover the usual like hotels, trains, guides, buses and 100km taxi rides. Factor that amount in as your base amount and work the rest of your finances around that.

The Romanian economy is not very healthy when you compare it to the oversized western European fat cats. The local currency “LEI” is very weak in relation to other countries from the West. At one stage on our trip, we changed 200 Euros and were given a paper bound stack of 50,000 LEI bills in return, 8,000,000 LEI to be exact. Now consider that a half-liter of beer costs 25,000LEI (50cents)…life is good in Romania for westerners!

With all this cash, some can get carried away and by all means one should feel free to live the dreams of a lifetime, although be aware of the ever present Gypsies who in Romania are well known for their criminal activities which range from pick pocketing to organized child-fronted begging.